Falcons have their own West Chester Restaurant Festival

WEST CHESTER — Those entering and leaving the Chester County Justice Center have in recent weeks fallen under the watchful eyes of a pair of raptors, who use the highest vantage point in the borough to scan the horizon for easy prey.

But these winged wonders aren’t posing a danger to the humans they see crossing West Market Street on their way into the seven-story edifice. Rather, they are a curse on the flock of pigeons that have been plaguing the county’s parking garage across the street from the courthouse.

The raptors, identified by a representative of the state Game Commission as Peregrine falcons, have been treating the pigeon population on the sixth floor of the garage — and elsewhere in the downtown area — as their personal breakfast and dinner “all-you-can-eat” buffet, those who have observed them say.

And as a consequence, the county Department of Facilities and Park have had less of a mess to clean up after at both the garage and the Historic Courthouse, where a host of pigeons has recently taken up residence. “At no cost to the county,” Wildlife Conservation Officer Keith Mullin observed last week wryly, when told about the falcons.

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“We know that there are falcons in the area, and we do believe that there are two that are preying on the pigeons” at the county-owned properties along the Market Street corridor, said Steve Fromnick, the county’s facilities director. “They seem to be containing them, for the most part, so we see them more of a help than a hindrance.”

The pair are normally seen sitting solo on one or the other of the roof corners of the seventh floor of the Justice Center, perched at the edge. That vantage point gives them a clear view of the garage and birds that fly in and out of the open upper floors there. “They like the highest perch,” Fromnick said.

Passersby who spot them high above the street have been known to point them out to others as they swoop away. Feathers and pigeon parts that they leave behind as scraps on the grassy strip along West Market Street on the front and side of the county building have also been seen as evidence of their presence.

No one yet has seen fit to give either a name.

Fromnick said that facilities personnel who work in and around the Justice Center have not spotted any nests for the pair on the roof of the building, where most of the heating and cooling mechanical operations are located, as a similar pair of peregrines have done at City Hall in Philadelphia for the past several years. They must live somewhere else and come into the borough for feeding, Fromnick speculated.

Workers doing restoration work at the Historic Courthouse in advance of a move by one of the West Chester district courts there next month had also seen evidence of peregrine attraction to the pigeons that roost above the Market Street entrance, he noted. One official related seeing a falcon fly away with a dead pigeon in its grasp.

Fromnick said that the county would be hesitant to try to move the falcons away from their perches, not only because they are proving an asset to containing the pigeon population but also because of their former endangered status. They would only become a hazard to humans if they were to build a nest to hatch young, which they would then try to protect, said Fromnick. There was no way of knowing whether the two falcons seen at the Justice center are a matched pair, he noted.

Mullin, a veteran on the Chester County wildlife scene, said that peregrines had become somewhat regulars on high posts in the urban world of Philadelphia and its neighbors, but he had not heard of the pair seen in West Chester. Not only are they on top of Philadelphia City Hall, he said, but they are also known to perch atop the towers of bridges that cross the Delaware River.

He was not surprised, however, to hear of the peregrines taking up residence on Market Street. If they knew that there was a plentiful source of food like the flocks of pigeons, that would be a natural fit for them. “Peregrines are pigeon-eating birds,” Mullin said. “It is probably their biggest source of prey in the Philadelphia area.”

Mullin described peregrines as “acrobatic” flyers that take their prey in mid-flight — thus liking to get the high ground, so to speak, to more easily swoop in for the kill.

Another who seem unsurprised, but pleased, to hear of the presence of the pair was Eric Weislogel of Newtown Square, a member of the West Chester Bird Club known as The Bad Birder, who also publishes an on-line blog at www.birdingdaily.com. In response to questions about the peregrines, he said they are one of the groups of raptors common to this part of the country, along with the Red-Tailed Hawk, the Sharp-Shinned Hawk, and Cooper’s Hawks that are seen in the county.

Peregrines typically are about 16 inches tall, smaller than a Red-Tailed Hawk. They were almost wiped out due to pesticides in the 1950s and 1960s (as were Ospreys, another raptor, and Bald Eagles, among others), and were on the endangered species list from around 1970 until just recently, Weislogel said. “It’s a good comeback story,” he commented. “They pose no threat to humans, but there are still countries that use bird-endangering pesticides, so humans still pose a threat the them.”

According to Weislogel, Pete Dunne, from the Cape May Bird Observatory, describes the peregrine as “shaped like an elongated teardrop” with “the grace of a professional skater.” Grace is a word that comes up in most descriptions of this bird, he said.

“Peregrines like to hunt flying things, from dragonflies to birds to bats,” Weislogel said, adding that pigeons are a favorite. “They tend to start off high above their prey and dive bomb them. National Geographic’s Complete Birds of North America reports that researchers once strapped an altimeter and data recording on a Peregrine and trained the bird to chase a lure dropped by a skydiver. The clocked the bird at 247 m.p.h.”

Peregrines are common now in cities, especially in the winter. They like cliffs or, if there doesn’t happen to be a cliff handy, tall buildings do just fine. He said that when he worked at the U.S. Steel building in Pittsburgh, “we used to watch a couple Peregrines out our 25th floor office windows.

Weislogel said that although they are “widespread,” they are actually uncommon. “Which means you can find them anywhere in North America, if you can find one. It’s not like they’re robins.”

He said he checked the Rose Tree Park Hawkwatch migration count totals in Delaware County for the fall of 2013, and they posted a count of 15 Peregrines for the season. In comparison, they counted 151 Bald Eagles and 3,688 Broad Wing Hawks.